I dug a hole three times as deep
as last time. You get better at these things.
Dead things. You say,
‘it’s the last time,’ but it never is,
death takes, it doesn’t give.
You watch it all go,
you have some control,
but mostly it’s death that is a constant.
The first four cats you bury you say,
‘that’s Fading Kitten Syndrome,’ a noun
but mostly, it’s a verb,
one that’s grown too familiar.
By the second dead kitten, you’ve tried
so many interventions
you feel like you’ve missed something.
By the last two and the little one seizing,
two hours in your arms,
you feel a glimmer of hope
like you were God. Well.
You failed him too.
Now, you’ve got all these cats
you’ve named,
Mittens and Dash and Ruby and Cam
and Smelvena and Tuna, and–
and no one wants them.
You’re thinking the advice you got
to take a bag and a shotgun is the most humane thing. How much pain
can one person take? So much more.
So. Much. More.
* By Me, the scammer, the god damn Anti-christ (according to my MIL), the feeler, the healer, the fucking alcoholic, pothead melancholy bitch you befriended and regretted it, the writer that’s never gonna be good enough.
